EL HAREM BI AMR IL LA H. 105 women were there, in contravention of his law, he ordered the doors and other approaches to be walled up, and the entire number perished of starvation. But it would be tedious to detail the numerous acts of fanaticism and folly of which he was guilty. Suffice it to say, that he committed every extravagance which could shock the prejudices or offend the scruples of his subjects. At last his folly reached its height, and he gave himself out to be the Deity incarnate, and called upon all men to render him divine honours. In these preposterous pretensions he was supported (perhaps instigated in the first place) by certain Persian Da'is, or emissaries of the Bateni sect, of whom the principal were Mohammed ibn Ismail ed Darazi and Hamza ibn Ah ibn Ahmed el Hadi. These persons endeavoured to spread their doctrines in Cairo itself; but although a certain number of persons, impelled either by fear or love of gain, did acknowledge the divinity of the caliph and abjure the Mussulman religion—yet the greater part of the populace shrank from the profession of such impiety, and Hamza and Ed Darazi were compelled to seek safety in flight. They chose Syria for the next scene of their operations, and found ready believers in the mountaineers of Lebanon and Hermon—men who still clung in secret to the idolatrous sun-worship of their forefathers. Thus was the sect of the Druzes established in Syria : they take their name from Ed Darazi, but they regard Hamza as the true founder of their religion. And for eight hundred years a hardy and intelligent race have acknowledged for their god one of the maddest monsters that the world has ever produced ! As for Hakem himself, his extravagant conduct could not long go unpunished. In the year 1021 he was assassinated, by the orders of his own sister, while engaged in one of his nocturnal ceremonies in Jebel Mokattem,